


The Raven and The Golden Crane

by RedFive



Series: The Wheel of Time Mile High Club [1]
Category: Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
Genre: Ficlet, Here Be Drunk To'rakens, Mat is still Mat, Post-Book 14: A Memory of Light, more canon compliant than not, spoiler warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2021-01-24 12:27:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21338230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedFive/pseuds/RedFive
Summary: Look, many things ARE Mat's fault, but he's not taking the blame for this one! Tuon up and vanished on her own, no matter what Nynaeve thinks!About the Series: Sometimes I go on long plane trips and take prompts from my Twitter followers. Here are the collected results of those sprints for the #TwitterOfTime community.
Series: The Wheel of Time Mile High Club [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1538236
Kudos: 8





	The Raven and The Golden Crane

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a prompt by [@RamirezFreddy06](https://twitter.com/RamirezFreddy06). "Mat and Nyneave run into each other 10 years after the series." Enjoy!
> 
> Beta'ed by [@Linisdailyadv](https://twitter.com/@Linisdailyadv).

They always met in Tel'aran'rhiod in Elayne’s study in Caemlyn—Mat, Nynaeve, and Elayne. Less often than before now that things were more settled and the dead buried. The meetings were routine, rote, and sometimes almost convivial. But not tonight…no, tonight was something else—something from the past. It was loud and contentious, just like the good old days.

“What happened!?” Nynaeve shouted at Mat. With brows furrowed deep enough for planting corn, she looked angrier than that badger he had wanted to release on the Village Green so many years ago—before Rand’s destiny got them all caught up in a steaming pile of Trolloc-shit. For an instant, her silk dress, embroidered with the golden crane of Malkier along the sleeves, became good Two Rivers wool. It lasted only a moment and was gone in a blink, but it proved that while you could take the Wisdom out of the Two Rivers, you couldn’t take the stubbornness of its people out of the Wisdom.

“Nothing happened, Nynae—,” Mat began to say, but was cut off immediately. 

“The Seanchan Empress is gone! YOUR WIFE is GONE! And you mean to stand there and tell me you had nothing to do with it!?! Where is she, Mat? Where is the rest of the army? But more importantly, what did you do!?!”

Mat, who had been lounging by the fire with his feet on Elayne’s desk while he broke the bad news, looked at the Wisdom with an injured expression. Why were women..._ and bloody Talmanes _ ...always treating him like he couldn’t be trusted with anything more complicated than a pair of sheep shears? He’d been _ perfectly _ well-behaved of late—minus that one incident involving the intoxicated to’raken—and didn't deserve this abuse. Part of that change in him was the result of getting older. Admittedly, another part was that his wife might literally kill him if he acted out of turn…again, but in his defense who knew that the beasts were such lightweights!? And how was he to know those berries had fermented!?

Mat had gotten quite good at ignoring most people who treated him like a child—or worse, a toy—but it always rankled when the tongue lashing came from Nynaeve. He considered her a friend, the best he had after Talmanes. With Rand and Egwene dead and lost to legend, old friends had become more important to Mat. Especially after Perrin disowned him for his involvement with the Seanchan now that Perrin was a fancy lord of the Two Rivers. Mat understood his reasons. Some of the channelers who had been killed or subjugated by the Seanchan had been their allies during the War of the Shadow. But burn it all, he didn’t like Rand’s bloody pact either! In Nynaeve’s case, however, Mat would have thought that after all all those rescues he’d been a part of in their reckless youth, he’d have earned _some_ benefit of the doubt. “I didn’t _do_ anything, and you already know where she went, Nynaeve _Sedai_," Mat said placing emphasis where he knew it would sting. “If you don’t think the Imperial Guard is aware of the Tower’s spies in Ebou Dar, then you are the fool. Not me!” he said pointing a finger at her.

Nynaeve’s eyes smoldered hot enough to make Mat regret losing his temper. “I’ll have it out of you, _Prince of the Ravens_, if I must tie you up by the ankles and beat it out of you like a well-worn rug.”

Mat winced at the use of his formal title, but knew he had earned it. He removed his feet from the desk and sat up before she became mad enough to start calling him Knotai, which he hated more. “She’s going to come back,” Mat insisted but even to his own ear, the words sounded thin. “_ After_ she’s secured the throne from the usurpers.” 

“So...there will be another purge then?” she asked sounding surprisingly mournful considering that it was the Seanchan who would die in the war to come. But they would die at the hands of the damane, many of whom had been captured on this side of the Aryth Ocean, so perhaps it was not so surprising after all. 

“Aye,” Mat nodded with a frown.

The rumors from Seanchan were vague about who these usurpers were or where they had come from, but Tuon’s spies believed them to be younger cousins who had escaped with their lives while Tuon was still coming into her own as the heir apparent. That there were _ two _ complicated the matter considerably. One rival was an inconvenience. Two suggested a conspiracy that had been decades in the planning. Tuon might well be walking into a trap while he remained behind, secure and cozy in front of a fire that wasn't even real.

Mat and Nynaeve were silent for a while. Their battle against the Dark One was over, but still so much death remained in the world. Or was that natural? Was that what being human meant? People lived. People died. People stabbed each other in the back. A heavy gold ring, that Nynaeve wore on a chain around her neck, caught the firelight. Like her dress, it too bore the golden crane of Malkier and roused Mat from his dark mood. People laughed too. And fell in love. They danced. They gambled. They pressed on and snatched what joy they could from the shit. Mat had seen thrones change hands countless times, in this life and in others, but succession as determined through the Seanchan tradition was like nothing he had ever seen or could have imagined. It was Daes Dae’mar as written by Aelfinn—deadly, dangerous, and cruel. There was a lot he had gotten used to since accepting his role as a husband and the commander of Tuon’s armies, but the Seanchan attitude towards what Mat could only call murder was _not_ one of them. And he preferred it that way…

It meant that even after ten years among his wife’s people, there was still enough of the Two Rivers left in him to be horrified by their treatment of their fellow humans. Mat thumbed a scar on the webbing of his left hand that he had gotten from a fishing hook as a boy. He’d acquired many scars since then, but he was still Mat from the Two Rivers. ‘_I am from the Two Rivers_,' he insisted internally while his _other_ memories stirred in protest. Light, did Rand ever go through this separation from self? Maybe he was going mad now too. 

“You are sure of that?” Nynaeve said diverting Mat’s attention to the matter at hand. 

Mat shrugged. “Probably. Nothing more complicated than family.” He couldn’t confidently say that it would be wise for her to return from the West if she hoped to hold both halves of the Empire. A kingdom divided was a kingdom at risk of falling to pieces. Apart, they could more easily secure their borders, and Mat was the sensible choice to remain here since these lands were his home. What felt strange though was how little it bothered him that Tuon might not return. She was his wife. If he loved her, wouldn’t he break the world, or at least an empire, to be with her? Or was it all too much....watching _Empress_ Fortuna train her damane, oblivious to the despair in their eyes.

“Probably!?! You fool man! Do you understand what this means!? Ostensibly, YOU are the ruler of the Eastern Seanchan Empire in Fortuna’s absence.” 

“And I’ve done a pretty good job at—-,” Mat broke off his rebuttal and swallowed hard. The dice had begun to roll as Nynaeve started pacing the length of Elayne’s study in Caemlyn. The bloody dice had been quieter these last few years. Their return made his stomach churn. _‘I’m done being a hero. I help the damane when I can, but that’s all. I’m no hero anymore,'_ he thought, as if that would be enough to escape destiny.

Finally, Nynaeve stopped and pounded a fist into the palm of her hand as if an idea had just come to her. “You will accept an Aes Sedai advisor. It’s the only solution.”

Mat’s mouth fell open. An Aes Sedai advisor?_ In Seanchan held lands? _Light, better to send the Whitecloaks. At least Galad had a pretty face and could charm most women—and most men too. Mat broke into a fit of laughter until he noticed that the dice had gotten louder. His laughter died in his throat. “Yeah, that’s not going to work, marath’damane and all.”

Nynaeve waved him off. “You will accept an Aes Sedai advisor in secret, Matrim Cauthon, and meet them here in Te’la’ranrhiod like we are doing now” she countered.

Mat thought about that and frowned. Annoying as it would be to lose a night of sleep to yet another badgering Aes Sedai who assumed he didn’t know one end of a lance from another, her plan would work. No one, not even Tuon, knew of the ter’angreal Elayne had given him after the Last Battle to aid in the effort to free the damane who wished to return to their former lives. 

But that wasn’t his problem…

No, his problem was that he’d had enough Aes Sedai to last him several lifetimes. And Asha’man too. Logain had made the Black Tower nearly as unfun as the White. There weren’t even any gambling halls anymore!

“I don’t need an advisor. I’m a pretty competent leader if you haven’t noticed. Maybe you remember a little thing I took care of for you called Tarmon’Gaidon?”

“Mat this is serious. You are a brilliant military mind—the greatest the world has ever known—but we are talking about politics. Taxes. Border disputes. Planning _parties_ for heads of state,” she said with a grimace.

“How hard it is to plan a bloody party?” Mat said and threw his arms up over his head. “Get some fireworks. Get some musicians. Make sure you don’t run out of ale. Simple!”

Nynaeve reached for a braid that was no longer there before catching herself. “You aren’t experienced in that sort of thing.”

“I have Talmanes.” Mat fired back.

Nynaeve rolled her eyes. “I’ve seen you with Talmanes and you both prefer dice to paperwork.”

“That we do!” he said and leaned back in his chair. His feet returned to their former place atop a very important looking stack of papers _and the dice grew louder again._ “Okay, for the sake of argument,” he began and the dice returned to their previous volume, “who did you have in mind?”

Nynaeve resumed her pacing and looked like a mountain cat on a hunt while she was about it. “Why, me, I should think. I am and Aes Sedai...and,” she swallowed, “a Queen after a fashion. I could, oh Light, I could help you.” The instant she finished speaking the dice came to a screeching halt that left little room for interpretation.

“Burn me for a trolloc,” Mat swore knowing that no matter how much he wished otherwise, the decision had been made for him. Still, there were worse choices as far as Aes Sedai went, and Nynaeve was a friend at least. But burn him! Nynaeve was the one Aes Sedai bold enough to appear in Seanchan-held lands just to box his ears in if he didn’t follow her instructions. “I guess I have an Aes Sedai advisor now.” What rotten luck. At least the Wisdom might know what berries were safe to feed a to’raken.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you liked my work please consider leaving a comment or saying hello on Twitter at either [@RedFiveWritingBy](https://twitter.com/red5writingby) or [@lgbtq_wot](https://twitter.com/lgbtq_wot).


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